Chapter 25
Lovelyn
Nothing killed the buzz of great sex like the prospect of bumping into your dad and your ex afterwards. I’d hit the jackpot of potential emotional disasters. Kane gave me a code for the warehouse’s side entrance, and I snuck inside, my pulse skipping along.
On a fast walk down a corridor, I retraced my steps. If I could reach the lift, I’d be free. The police wouldn’t be allowed above stairs.
But when I turned the corner, my body took a screenshot. Lyle was at the far end, one of the crew members escorting him into a room.
Oh shit.
The detective’s gaze fell on me, and he stopped. “Lovelyn? What are you doing here?”
I forced a smile. “Hey, Lyle. Small world. Um, possibly the same reason you’re here?”
If he was going to get screwed by a gang member. Probably not the way he was imagining.
Coldness hung over his features. I’d only ever seen Lyle at the police headquarters, at my house, or on a date where he’d been all smiles and easiness.
I didn’t truly believe he was the one calling in horrible messages about me or raiding my home, but that wasn’t the reason for my worry.
I didn’t want his nose in my business. As far as I knew, he had no idea of my extracurricular activities like my father did.
He also had a different vibe about him today than when he’d asked me for dinner. Stonier. A man on a mission.
He took in my oversized t-shirt, an odd pairing with my long skirt, and a deep contrast to his smart business-casual. Previously, we’d matched. Not tonight.
“Which is?”
“Work-related. I came in to interview.” Technically not a lie as Arran and Convict had questioned me. I didn’t owe Lyle answers, but I also didn’t want to make anything more difficult for the skeleton crew. If only I knew why he was here. “What’s going on?”
A degree of the hostility left him, and he blew out a breath, one hand to his hip. “Shit. If you need more work, I can talk to your father. You should get out of here. No job in this shithole is worth risking your reputation over. You have no idea what goes on in this building, or outside of it.”
Behind him, the crew member glared daggers.
I could’ve laughed. Lyle had heard people having sex but didn’t know it was me. Thank God for that.
His radio bleeped, and he lifted it, giving me a dismissive flick of his hand. “Go home, Lovelyn. There’s nothing for you here.”
In relief, I took a step backwards but hit someone coming the other way.
Lyle’s focus on his radio died, and he goggled at the man at my back. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Kane.
“Everything okay?” he said low, just for me.
My eyes shuttered closed of their own accord, and I snapped them open and peeked up. Kane was clothed, thank the Lord, but had a skeleton crew bandanna in his fist.
Lyle had seen me with Kane in the street outside the police headquarters. Now, he had reason to associate Kane with the gang that owned this warehouse, and from Lyle’s scowl, he’d made a host of assumptions in one look.
I didn’t know what to do.
I froze completely.
Kane took the decision off my hands. He neutralised his expression, moved around me, then walked the rest of the hall, lifting his chin to the other crew member behind Lyle. “Need some help?”
I fled. Back the way I’d come and down another corridor, to a set of stairs which delivered me to the brothel on the third floor. From there, with eyes averted from the mostly naked women, no judgement, just professional courtesy, I was able to get around to the central lift and on to the seventh.
In Cassie’s apartment, I half fell into the room, breathing hard. “The police are downstairs. Where’s Mila? Convict should hide.”
My father had falsely imprisoned him for reasons best known to himself. He’d never tell me what shady shit he was into, but it was related to the Marchant case for sure.
Cassie slammed the door and leaned back on it, her eyebrows rising to meet her abundant curls.
“Convict merrily invited your father in. Some guy with him demanded Mila go down for an informal interview. Voluntary attendance. I told her she didn’t have to, but she went anyway.
Convict is staying with her, I think to taunt your dad. He knows he can’t touch him here.”
I exhaled, loosening some of my panic.
My mind raced over why Lyle and my father would want to talk to Mila.
How they even knew where she’d be. Although maybe that was easily answered.
Mila and Convict were an acknowledged couple, brought together in the skeleton crew’s infamous game.
Their relationship was public knowledge.
If they’d tried her place first, here was the next best bet.
Everly raised her phone to her ear and answered a call. “Yes, I know. No, I won’t come downstairs. Keep your big-boy pants on.” She rolled her eyes, earning a laugh from Genevieve and Cassie.
I pictured a freaked-out Shade, being his overprotective self.
Excusing myself to the guest bathroom, I took a minute to clean up and change my underwear. I’d already removed Kane’s shirt in the lift so stashed it in my big velvet bag. Mine now. He wasn’t getting it back.
When I returned, Genevieve was on her way out the door.
“I hate this waiting around. I need alcohol. I’m going to make espresso martinis. Be right back with ingredients.”
She disappeared, leaving the rest of us in quiet contemplation. I didn’t like this at all. I had my suspicions over what my father and Lyle were here to say.
The more I thought about it, the more obvious it was.
Genevieve mixed the drinks, and we waited, the city outside the huge arched window going about its business with traffic winding through the streets and the river flowing, catching the lights of the harbour walk.
Time and time again, I got lost on memories of the game Kane and I played. The man was a dangerous addiction.
Mila reappeared by the time I was one cocktail deep.
She entered the room, her face pale, and her boyfriend a dark shadow behind her.
We waited for her to speak.
“Tomorrow, the news about the bodies on the Eden will break.”
“That’s what the cops came to tell ye?” Cassie asked.
She gave a shaky nod.
I pressed my fingers to my lips. “My father didn’t say or I’d have warned you. What did they ask?”
“It was a warning disguised as an informal interview, but also intense. I spent my formative years in boardrooms, and we saw police often for various reasons, but not like that. They looked at me very differently, like I was a suspect. It was awful.” She clutched Convict’s arm. “Is it always like that?”
He kissed her forehead. “I don’t remember any but the last, but trust me, they don’t suspect you, little gangster. If they did, they wouldn’t pull that informal shit.”
The last had been when my father had illegally held him in Leith.
Though that had only been a short time ago, the balance of my life had shifted from that point.
From dating a cop to sleeping with a gangster.
I felt less aligned with the police and closer to Deadwater’s underworld. The balance shifting.
Mila exhaled and continued her telling. “They gloated over how the press is going to have a field day, telling me they’ll do deep dives into Marchant Haulage.
No stone left unturned, so if I had anything to fess up, do it now.
It’s considered a murder investigation, and the detective talked about evidence of criminal acts. ”
She sank onto the sofa, a mix of emotions ghosting over her pretty features. “They were asking about my role in the business. If they aren’t sounding me out as a suspect, they need me for information.”
The rest of us exchanged worried glances.
I took her hand. “You’ve done nothing wrong. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I know. It isn’t that.” Mila went impossibly paler still. “The press will name me. I was the figurehead for the family business. The one who was supposed to keep the firm going years into the future. They’ll name Kane, too, once they dig out his details.”
“Did he talk to them?” I found myself asking.
Leaning against the kitchen counter, Convict snorted. “He played bodyguard, unspeaking and intimidating in a dark corner, and trying to murder the lead cop with his eyes. He said nothing. Wouldn’t confirm his name, even though they had it from somewhere. Pissed them off no end.”
I could’ve laughed, but fear for Kane shrank my insides.
Mila took a shuddering breath. “There’s a bigger problem.
What if they identify our sister? Enough of the family were in the will reading.
If they blab about her, it could turn into headlines, and if Dixie reads about it, she’ll go even deeper into hiding, won’t she?
I’m pretty sure that’ll kill off any chance of us finding her. ”
My heart sank. If only I’d done more, I could’ve found her earlier. Now, I had not the smallest idea where to look. “How can we stop that happening?”
Mila shook her head. “We can’t.”
As Mila spoke, Genevieve had made a second round of drinks, and she handed out the coffee-laced cocktails one by one, with a fruit mocktail for Everly.
Mila sank hers in one go, her gaze sweeping all of us in.
“Earlier, Lovelyn and I were discussing a plan. I’m going to pay a visit to some of my relatives tomorrow.
According to the police, the story will break in the late afternoon or evening news when they have the biggest available audience.
That gives me most of the day to make the rounds. ”
“What do you hope to get out of it?” Genevieve asked.
A dark light sparked in Mila’s eyes. “I need to get in there first. Face to face with every one of those treacherous bastards, I’m going to accuse them of enabling trafficking and see their reactions, then ask them at what point they found out about my sibling.
I can be vague enough that those who only know about Kane will think I’m talking about him.
With the others, I’m going to scare the shit out of them so they keep their mouths shut.
It’s my only chance to protect my sister. ”
I shivered at the venom in her speech.
She was so brave. I couldn’t imagine doing the same. I was a behind-the-scenes girl. Better placed at a computer and digging out data than trembling while trying to pluck up the courage to intimidate someone. Or go after what she wanted.
From a sheath in her boot, Cassie extracted a blade, the light catching a deadly edge. I stared in shock. That had been there the whole time? Holy cow.
“I’ll come with ye,” she decided. “Which means Rio will, too. I assume you’ll be there as well, Convict? Watching the doors, glaring menacingly.”
Like mine, Mila’s gaze was on the knife. “I love the idea.”
Convict smirked. “If anyone thinks I’m leaving Mila’s side, they’re dreaming. Hey, we can play good cop, bad cop while she interrogates them. This is going to be fun.”
Cassie raised her glass. “Skeleton girls and boys unite!”
We all drank to that.
A short while on, a message vibrated my phone. Somehow, I knew it was Kane before I even read the screen. I’d given him my number outside, and he’d remembered it. My heart thumped at his words.
Kane: Come to the fourth floor.
I made my excuses and left the apartment to travel down in the lift. When the doors opened, he was waiting for me. That typical dark gaze swept over me.
I took my first deep breath in what felt like an hour. “Lyle didn’t arrest you, then.”
“For having the woman he wanted?”
My stomach flipped. If Kane had me, that meant I was his. Possession shouldn’t sound hot. It did.
“With any luck, he’ll leave you alone now.” He jerked his head down the hall. “Follow me.”
The floor we were on had the feel of a hotel. A long, quiet corridor with several solid doors either side. We bypassed them all to a coded exit. Kane rumbled the number, and I tapped it in, the lock giving way to allow us access to another corridor beyond, half a dozen doors in its shorter reach.
Kane gestured back. “The section we just walked is where paying guests sometimes spend the night with their man or woman of choice. Don’t linger for long. This side is for crew only. Arran allows us the use of the rooms if we need them. This one’s mine.”
Another code unlocked the room marked with a ‘5’, and he made way for me to go inside.
Though it wasn’t Kane’s actual home, just like with his Manchester flat, I took in every detail.
The grey bedding on a huge bed. A stone floor and padded headboard.
The automatic low lights springing on in the bathroom.
The bags he’d taken from his car and stuck neatly under a small desk next to a fridge.
“Don’t go home. Stay here, please?” he asked.
My heart squeezed, and I peered back at him. I’d never heard him use that soft tone before. He could have made it an order. He didn’t. That tiny difference undid me. “I will. I’m working with your sister. It suits me better to be here tonight. She said you stayed with her during the interview.”
He leaned on the wall, his gaze travelling my form. “All the better for getting a closer look at your stalker.”
“Your conclusion?”
“He wants me dead. Though that could be because your father wants it more. His disgruntled glare at Convict then me said he knew I’d been the one to bust him out.”
Which meant my father would be a dick if he saw me with Kane. I’d already known that, though.
I changed the subject instead of dwelling on the consequences. “Does the press attention worry you?”
Kane gave a slow shake of his head, his focus sliding down my form, over my skeleton girls’ t-shirt.
I sank onto the mattress, my body coming alive under his scrutiny. This was what I wanted. A bed and a locked door. The opportunity to explore him and for him to take his time over me. I craved the intimacy we hadn’t yet reached, though we’d had sex twice.
I rested back on my hands, presenting myself better for him. His magnetism and the low-lit room was only leading in one direction in my mind. My core ached from what we’d done barely an hour ago, but still I needed more.
“Ye make a pretty fucking picture in my bed, Lovelyn.”
“It would be better with you in it.” My voice trembled. I wanted him so badly.
He pushed off the wall, the lust in his eyes shifting to something else. Desperation. Sharp, all-encompassing need. Then every hint of emotion disappeared as he slammed down the walls I recognised all too well.
“Tyler’s waiting on me. I’m heading out.”
Rejection stole my words. Fine. Go.
My heart hurt when he did.